A multi-agency-driven National Hi-Tech Crime Unit is due to start work in April 2001, providing a 24-hour international hot line to trade information about potential attacks on the national infrastructure. It will also promote closer cross-border working.
The unit will monitor cyberterrorist attacks on the Critical National Infrastructure and major Internet-based offences of paedophilia, fraud and extortion, and information from seized electronic media. It will also gather information on cybercriminals to make the UK one of the safest places to conduct e-commerce.
Earlier this year, delegates at an IT security conference were warned of the serious damage that could be wreaked by enemy countries weak in conventional military hardware, but some firms were Internet-savvy enough to launch sophisticated virus attacks against UK companies (‘Germ warfare’, SMT, August 1999, p30).
At the same time, the 43 police forces in England and Wales are to receive GB pound 37 million worth of investment to drive forward a National Management Information System. By 2004, this will include a new national digital police radio system and a national DNA database holding profiles of the entire criminally-active population.
It’s envisaged that each force in the country will have at least one hi-tech crime investigator. The project will call on the expertise of the National Crime Squad, the NCIS, Customs and Excise and ACPO.